Ash Wednesday Masses

8:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. at St. Joseph, McPherson

5:30 p.m. at St. Bridget of Sweden, Lindsborg

The following article by Fr. David appeared in the Friday, February 20th edition of the McPherson Sentinel as the Inspirational Message:

Ashes, ashes…

The season of Lent will soon be upon us, beginning with Ash Wednesday, on February 25th.  Many Christians will observe Lent as five weeks of preparation for the feast of Easter.  Some will also seek to become more attached to God and detached from the world by deepening their life of prayer and observing acts of penance.  That happens to be the traditional outlook of Catholics, who also abstain from meat on Fridays and fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

Another Catholic observance that draws some attention from people will be the ashes visibly smudged on their foreheads, which they receive during Mass on Ash Wednesday.  Why do Catholics do that?  It seems particularly ironic when considering Jesus’ words in the Gospel of Matthew which will be proclaimed at that very Mass: “Take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father” (6:1).  Huh?  Wait a minute: Jesus tells us not to perform any visible, righteous actions, but then we go and mark our foreheads with ashes!  What gives?  It seems to go against what Our Lord is proclaiming to us.

A way to understand this apparently contradictory practice is to consider the significance of personal intention.  What is a Christian’s intention when performing righteous actions?  Jesus was challenging selfish or hypocritical intentions that motivated actions.  He goes on, in that passage of Matthew, to point out how some religious people of the day performed righteous actions only to call attention to themselves, to vaunt their esteem in the eyes of their fellow men, not to respond in love to God and neighbor.  In contrast, a righteous action performed with integrity and the intention of truly seeking the good of another or one’s growth in holiness is not hypocritical.

So, when it comes to marking one’s forehead with ashes, it all depends upon one’s personal intention behind that visible observance.  If a Catholic receives ashes only to call attention to himself, well, he might as well just wipe the ashes right off after Mass.  But, if a Catholic uses that righteous action to call to mind his need for God’s grace, his renewed effort to believe in the Gospel message and to love God and neighbor even more—and not just for the forty days of Lent, but his whole life long—then he is acting with integrity.  Actions look the same from the outside, but they can have radically different moral value because of the intentions that inspire those actions.  For Catholics and many Christians, the righteous actions and intentions of Lent can be summed up in the words of blessing that are offered when one receives the ashes: “Turn away from sin and believe in the Gospel!”